


Wherein no one survives unscathed

by ChasetheSun2



Category: Homestuck
Genre: Blood and Gore, Body Horror, Gen, Goretober 2019, Hanahaki Disease, Other, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Terminal Illnesses, Vomiting
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-03
Updated: 2019-10-03
Packaged: 2020-11-22 14:54:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20876054
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChasetheSun2/pseuds/ChasetheSun2
Summary: 31 days of horror and gore prompts for Goretober 2019. Each chapter's beginning notes will contain that chapter's tags so you don't have to guess which chapter holds which tag. Read at your own risk.





	Wherein no one survives unscathed

**Author's Note:**

> DAY ONE: Hanahaki disease. One of my favorite fanfic tropes.
> 
> TAGS FOR THIS CHAPTER: Body horror, Blood, Vomiting, Terminal diseases.

It starts on the same day you get the flu, which is probably why you don’t notice what was happening until it was far too late. You’re already coughing, already barely able to breathe, what’s a few more winded moments in the long run?

But the flu goes away; the coughing does not. If anything, it worsens. Your chest aches. It feels as though there is something crushing your ribs, squeezing tightly around them and making them creak with pressure. As if someone is sitting on you. But all at once that pressure seems to come from inside as well, as if something inside of you is threatening to split you open, shattering every bone and eviscerating your lungs in the process. Pushing both out and in until it’s all you can do to gasp and retch and shake until the coughing subsides. It leaves you dizzy with breathlessness more days than it leaves you alone.

You cough up your first lily petal exactly twelve days after your flu first began. 

On that day, the coughing is worse than any other day before. Your ribs feel tighter than usual, as if you’d been stuffed full to bursting with something that refused to go back into your chest. The thing trying to get out of you is making a final push out and up into your throat and around your ribs. You’re in the middle of talking to Latula when it happens about something Mituna had done. Your voice had started to raise. The argument continued, grating as your breaths grew short. Anger bubbled up in your chest, resentment and  _ hurt _ ; wishing that she could just see things the way you do.

And then the hurt becomes more physical than emotional. That wasn’t anger, you realized, that had filled your lungs so. You start coughing. Your words turn breathless and wheezy as you gasp for air, one hand to your chest. Latula’s face goes from bored irritation at your constant lecture to instantaneous worry; her brows furrowed, her frown shifting to something a little more concerned. She reaches out a hand to you and you slap it away out of instinct as the coughs bubble from your chest and force their way out of your throat. 

“Don’t touch me--!” You rasp, dragging in a breath that sounded all too much like a death rattle to your ears. Obediently she pulls back, then turns and runs in the opposite direction for help as you sink to your knees. You barely hear her calling out to you to stay there. Not that you could really go anywhere, anyhow, sunk to your knees in the grass, clutching at your throat.

With all your strength you push one hand into the ground under you, trying to get to your feet but nothing happens. All your energy has withered away. You just keep coughing and the pressure under your ribs gets worse and worse. For one terrible, terrible moment you’re horrified that you might actually break a rib from the pressure and coughing, and hug your middle tightly with one arm.  Your sweater’s collar feels too tight around your neck and you tug at it harshly. You gag; something works its way up your insides, scratching and tickling and making the coughing feel suddenly all too wet. With a dull panic you realize you can feel something moving as it crawls its way from inside your chest, up your throat, tickling your uvula and causing your stomach to heave. 

Using every ounce of energy you have left, you muster the strength to force yourself to stop coughing. You work the muscles of your throat and dredge up the last few drops of spit in your mouth, trying to eject whatever it is from your body and out onto the ground. 

The thing turns out to be a snow-white lily petal. 

Of course, it’s not snow-white anymore. Mucus and blood stained its veins yellow and red and it altogether looks disgusting, laying there in its shiny wet splendor on the ground. It would be beautiful if it wasn’t for those fluids. If it weren’t for the sheer horror of the fact that it had just come from  _ inside you. _

The pressure in your chest wanes and you can breathe again, but you don’t. You think you’re going to be sick. 

You’re already gone by the time Latula returns. The door to your hive slams shut and you’re panting, wheezing for breath that claws at your throat all the way down and rakes at your lungs until you have to sink to the porch floor to fight off the dizziness that slams into you. You rest your head against the door and try to calm your racing heart but it’s just not working. It’s useless; the panic has fully set in.

You have the lovers’ disease. 

If you could breathe properly, you would be hyperventilating. Your mind races, thinking of something - anything you could do to ease the pain. There’s always the usual cures, you think; confessing or getting a surgical procedure, but both of those terrify you to no end. You know for a fact that Mituna and Latula are already flushed, or damn close to it. Getting turned away would only make the disease ravage you faster...that, and you just know you couldn’t handle the heartbreak of seeing the platonic pity in her eyes as she rejects you verbally. A once and for all final nail in the coffin, both for you and your paltry romantic fantasies.

The surgery is just as bad of an idea to you. Sure, it would eliminate all the issues, you’d be free and clear and cured...but you’d never remember Latula at all, and if that wouldn’t be the most obvious indicator for anyone who knew you that your coughing had been something other than a flu, that you were a useless excuse for a troll with a stupid illness because he can’t get up the globes to get over an old crush--

You suck in a rattling breath. Letting your mind run into anxious rambling will not help you now. You try once again to rationalize, but all you can think of is how you would most definitely be culled if you opted for the surgery. You’d be put under some highblood’s care and treated like a gilded pet, a trophy to remind other highbloods just how  _ nice _ and  _ kind  _ and  _ understanding _ your new owner - sorry, caretaker - really is. 

With a burgeoning sense of dread you realize that you can’t cure yourself. There’s nothing you can do now or ever, short of falling out of love with Latula, that will ever make this disease go away on your terms. Your mouth falls open in a silent scream, but all that comes out is a choked whimper. You drag your hands through your hair. The silence of your hive seems to press in on you, the lilies in your chest pressing back out, until it’s all you can do to just sit there and cry out your resigned fate in silent tears. They fall fat and thick down your cheeks and you shudder, but you don’t make a sound. You can’t. You’re caught between the devil and the deep blue sea and there’s no lifeboat in sight for you that won’t immediately sink. 

So you lay on the floor and cry. 

You cry for what seems like hours, days even, but could have been mere minutes for all you know. Once all your tears are spent you lay there for a good long while, silent and still, giving the occasional cough as the lilies shift and writhe inside you. 

You can feel them now - you don’t know how you didn’t before. They twist and squirm like the so many living things they are, scraping your lungs and stretching root and stem alike along your insides. You can feel them reaching up unto your esophagus. Even the silken petals feel like razorblades against your throat and your breath comes out around them in a squeaky hiss. You swear you can feel the flowers piercing through the meat of your lungs, strangling your heart and rattling your ribcage as it slowly burrows its tendrils into you.

The thought makes your stomach turn. You get up from the porch and race to the ablutions block, barely making it in time before you’re forced to kneel in front of the gaper. The coughing returns and you see stars.

All that comes out is petals. Petals, and the occasional leaf and stem. Seeing the bloodied but beautiful flowers floating in the water makes your stomach turn again, and again, but no matter how much you heave all that comes out is flowers. It’s as if the disease has already spread, laying claim to your stomach as well as your lungs. 

Vaguely in the back of your mind you wonder if you’re even able to eat anymore. 

You stare down at the flowers with a dazed sort of fear swimming through your veins, paralyzing you. There’s nothing you can do anymore to save yourself. It’ll get worse, and worse, until your organs are simply nesting hosts for the roots of flowers pushing their way through the surface of your skin. You’ll leave a pretty, mangled corpse lying in your bed, starved and poisoned, suffocated by petals. Barely visible under the forest that will grow from your flesh will be your body. 

Already you can feel them worming their way up the back of your throat, past your mouth, up into your nose. They tickle the little space between your eye ducts and eyeballs. You pick at your eyelid and feel a bud growing there, just under your eye.

With shaking legs, you stand. You strip. Your tears have stopped long ago, now, your face sticky with them but no more falling. You’re not sure if it’s because your ducts are blocked or because of the tired resignation that’s clouded your mind. It’s far too late for you, but that’s alright. You watch the tendrils squirm under the skin of your chest. They’re already wrapped around your ribs, pushing out into your skin. You can see the delicate petals and stems wriggling and slowly scratching away at your insides, wearing down your flesh until they can poke free. 

It’s far too late for you. But that’s alright. 

You finish stripping and get into the shower. You may as well be clean for when it happens.


End file.
